Pretty Dapper

A rest stop somewhere east of nowhere.

The past month has been damned magical.

I drank a margarita at Disneyland, saw one of my favorite bands surrounded by stuffed bison, wandered the gardens of Hearst Castle (more) and swam in a red-neck podunk hot springs in Paso Robles. I drank a ton of wine by the beach and drunkenly used a swing set for the first time in years, on the sand, as the sun set in celestial striations of fuchsia, indigo, and tangerine. I basked in the sun on the beach in Summerland and about an hour later danced under the stars in the forest to country rock music beside a flowing stream. Then I ate some rabbit smothered in gravy and slept on the ground by the sea. I drank pink champagne in an over-priced Motel 6 watching terrible television while the wife-beater wearing neighbors across the wall were audibly in flagrante delicto. I saw a hilarious movie that unfortunately won't come out until August and saw another movie that made me cry so hard I had to pretend I was having a spontaneous hiccup fit to save what little of my pride cares. I went to Hawaii for a weekend and dressed to kill and drank Mai Tais alone at the bar on the sand in one of the grandest hotels. I also went to Ross. I lounged on the North Shore watching crystalline turquoise waves twice my height crash at my feet as the palm fronds blew in the rain-laden breeze. I had mediocre Mexican food at a place that didn't serve water and played with a dog that weighed approximately less than the average burrito. I wrote at least one 10 page legal document in 3 hours the morning it was due in bed in a hotel (and, it pains me to brag, but lest you judge me a fool, I did very well on it). I attended a cheesy "prom" throwback of sorts at an automotive museum but had a better time drinking margaritas at the dive-y restaurant on the seedy block where I had dinner earlier that afternoon. I toured a high level fashion manufacturing facility with the CEO as a guide. I bought nothing at their sample sale, coincidentally going on that day. I went to Santa Barbara, again, and danced with a large rope of seaweed as the ocean frothed around my ankles in the golden afternoon light. I went to a Joseph Campbell book club meeting where I learned more and had to think harder in one hour than I have to in law school every six months. On a weeknight I left at seven for a concert in Santa Barbara in a warehouse by the pier, got three hours of sleep, and at eight the next morning completed a client interview exam (with flying colors-- I'm sorry to self-aggrandize, but the point is it's all wild and so far successful-- I'm setting up terribly dangerous precedents for myself of preciously irresponsible behavior, and enjoying every moment of it). I walked two miles along the Grand Canyon into the plum and cobalt sunset as the primordial silence and jagged expanse of the vast red maw gaped below. I spent an entire day lying on the dirt beside a campfire in a dusty pine forest reading Navajo legends and listening to the ravens dance in the trees. In the gloaming hour of softest evening, I wandered a graveyard filled with young people who drowned in the Colorado river ninety years ago, and one Mason whose epitaph quoted Kipling and said "After me cometh a builder... Tell him I too have known." I stumbled across a herd of elk in the frigid night, in the midst of all the hotels, though I am one of the few wandering by that even looked up and saw them there. I did not expose their secret. I walked in the blackness of a night so dark I could not see a thing before me, but I kept walking with the faith that I would eventually see by starlight-- and that I would not walk off a precipice before that happened. I was in a parking lot, so it panned out. I breakfasted underneath the rust-colored spires of Sedona and bathed the jewelry I made that morning in the river that carves beneath them. I drank whiskey and danced in a century old saloon in one of the most haunted towns in America, perched a mile high on the sheer side of a desert mountain, to Grateful Dead covers, surrounded by bikers three times my age who danced twice as well as you'd expect. I drove through a valley filled with nothing but running horses and blowing grasses at the hour the sunlight is its most slanted and most golden, feeling like it couldn't be more than a dream. It was. I sang as loud as I could to Hotel California as the sun set just like a Tequila Sunrise and all I could see were the silhouettes of the rocks and Saguaro cacti suspended in the warm desert night. I saw a hell of a lot of live music shows and saw a heck of a bunch of movies and played guitar and keyboard and bagpipes and flute and painted and read and wrote and laughed and cried and did all those things and enjoyed each one more than the last. It's not cliche if it's true, and if you really love it, whether it's cliche doesn't matter. This is only some of it, but I'm tired and have talked about myself enough for one month. Bananas, friends. I had a hell of a March. Good luck, April.